The aim of this paper is to prove the existence of periodic solutions to symmetric Newtonian systems in any neighborhood of an isolated orbit of equilibria. Applying equivariant bifurcation techniques we obtain a generalization of the classical Lyapunov center theorem to the case of symmetric potentials with orbits of non-isolated critical points. Our tool is an equivariant version of the Conley index. To compare the indices we compute cohomological dimensions of some orbit spaces.